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How Can I Stop Feeling Nervous/less Worthy Of The Type Of Girls I Want To Meet?

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Glen Myers

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I can flirt/approach (barely) girls I find mildly attractive but not really all the way. Ever since I was 13 (i'm 20 now) i've been settling for girls at "the bottom of the barrel" if you will...

The girls i'm really attracted to I always get WAY to nervous and petrified to talk to.

Part of the reason is because i'm only 5'3" and the girls I like are really social party girls who usually go out with guys who are 5'9-6'0" so I feel like i'm really unattractive to them. I only rarely see them with a short guy like me and they usually have a rock solid confidence which I am not even close too.

Whenever a girl is wearing shorts or a croptop that shows her nice physique I automatically tell myself i'm not good/cool/sociallly outgoing enough for her. A lot of the times when I see their boyfriends they're usually either a tall thuggish guy or a tall athletic guy. Everyonce in a while i'll see them with a shorter guy like me but I always chalk it up to "good luck" or something completely ridiculous which I know isn't true.

Over the past year and a half i've been working like a mad man on my physical appearance,skin, and clothes. I get looks from the kind of girls I like, almost never, but it happens from time to time and when it does I can't even talk to her because of how shy/nervous I am. I just feel they're from some superior planet and only go out with guys from this said superior planet.

I can't get myself to accept that they'd be interested in talking to me.

By the way, i'm still 2-4 inches taller than the girls i'm talking about so it's not like i'm trying to get with tall girls...
 
Its ALL about confidence!

And, as you get older, you'll realize that looks aren't the end all and be all of everything.....

I met a guy last summer and he was in disbelief as he found me to be quite attractive and said I was nice! (haha, I know what you guys are thinking, SOLARA NICE?!?! Yes, my offline persona is quite different!) He said "this never happens...." I was a bit surprised, but who am I to challenge his past experiences? My point is that if you go after only hotties, you're missing out on a LOT of great women out there. And seriously, look at older people in their 30's, 40's, 50's and beyond.....less and less are what you'd consider to be "hot".....so as you get older, are you going to continue to trade up?
 
Okay... I will be honest... don't be mad at me.
I think some people did consider me hot before I had my two children and there were quite a few guys interested in me so allow me to have an opinion. I don't want to be offensive but I would never have been interested in a guy with an attitue like
Ever since I was 13 (i'm 20 now) i've been settling for girls at "the bottom of the barrel" if you will...

This attitue is very hurtful for the women you have been dating and it makes me wonder what you would do if you start dating a beautiful girlfriend and she looses her good looks...
I don't look as good as I used to and have some really ugly stretch marks but my husband told me they make me attrative to him because they show I carried his babies and that at a certain age now scars or marks are the sign of an unlived life.

A lot of the times when I see their boyfriends they're usually either a tall thuggish guy or a tall athletic guy.

By the way I have been blamed by a man "Why do women like you always fall for the thuggish guys?" and honestly it is another thing that makes a man very unattractive because my husband is no thug. One cannot tell if a man is a thug just by looking at him.

I don't know you very well but in this post you come across as a person who has a) a poor attitude about "plain looking women" and b) a poor attitute of "hot" women (who according to you fall for thugs) and c) males who are with attractive women - who you consider to be thugs.

This hateful attitude makes you unattractive - no matter what you look like.

I don't mind nervousness at all by the way and many of my friends think shyness is sweet in a guy.
 
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I hope that this is not offensive. I really only want to help. You should work on your attitue and you can do that :)
 
Just let me add an example of what I find attractive in a male.

My husband and me have a friend who working towards his Ph.D. of a complicated subject... my husband is quite smart and well-educated but doesn't understand much about this subject. Hubby told him "Wow, you must be very smart to be able to understand this subject. I struggled with this in school. Congratualions on your stipendium, must be a lot of hard work"... he did not say "You don't deserve this. The subject is not important. Why don't we talk about me?". He went on to ask a number of questions that showed he was genuinely interested in our friends experience.
Very attractive.

If you see an athlete next time I would suggest try to tell yourself how much he deserves the recognition... and if you see him with a beautiful woman try to be happy for both. Chances are that she did not pick him because he is an athlete and he did not pick her for her outward appearance but that it is just love.
 
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I'd have to agree with the comments above about your apparent attitude to woman, based on what you have written, but perhaps it just came out wrong.

Putting that aside. I felt exactly as you when I was your age (my God, 30 years ago!). I'm also a small man, and believed physical attributes dictated why I seemed so unattractive to women. I also had some other profound issues that were distressing me. Like you I couldn't approach a girl I felt attracted to, or any girl for that matter, I just turned into a gibbering wreck. I didn't think any girl could be attracted to me physically or emotionally, it was agony. I had my first relationship when I was thirty and have had only two partners in my life.

For me it just took that long to meet someone who could see over the barriers I was unknowingly putting up, and little by little gave me the confidence to be myself.

Setting aside a negative self image is in my experience incredibly difficult, and worthy of therapy in itself. Based on my own life experience, for what's it's worth I'd say don't try so hard, don't always try to impress, be yourself, and 20 is no age, there's no rush (I know it doesn't feel like this).

Treat every person like you'd like to be treated, with respect and care, regardless of appearance. Everybody has feelings and everybody deserves to feel loved, you included.

Funny I'd never of believed I'd be handing out relationship advice! Lol..
 
@Glen Myers :

I was *always* attracted to taller guys - partly due to insecurity with my own body - I'm a taller girl, 5'9" with a history of a heavier physique, and past boyfriends have been 6'3" and taller. I have since lost most of my excess weight, found my mo-jo, and my man (and future husband) is "only" 5'8" (shorter?!) and about 20 lbs lighter than me .. *shock* ;)

He has always gone for girls WAY smaller than me - but grasping my own health, and gaining experience with "putting myself out there" in the dating scene, I have learned better how to relate and express confidence (even if I don't FEEL it!) .. I used to think "flirting" was like LYING .. or manipulation. Something my man (and his wealth of experience compared to mine in dating/relationships) has helped me understand is that "flirting" is like the first couple "clicks" in unlocking a combination lock. It's not lying or manipulative (unless *I* make it so) - it's using social cues to *communicate* what I like about the other person ... Not merely "flattery" but genuine "compliment." And failing to succeed in the first couple clicks is not the same as rejection - it just means we aren't connecting - either I needed to find the correct first clicks, OR move on to another person .. I had to learn "that's ok!" and doesn't mean I've failed. You only have to "succeed" once ..

*just adding my 2 cents worth*

You're only 20 years old? GOOD FOR YOU for asking yourself the hard questions! I, on the other hand, was a nearly 40 year old virgin and quite set in my messed up ways with relationships. LOL ;)

~S2B
 
Ever since I was 13 (i'm 20 now) i've been settling for girls at "the bottom of the barrel" if you will...
No one has asked this yet and I'm curious, so I will. What makes these people "bottom of the barrel", in your opinion? Are they self centered? Are they liars? Foul language? Shallow? Impressed by superficial stuff and not interested in getting to know the real you? What are you looking for in a relationship, exactly? (Because I think you can see how we tended to interpret what you said, the way you said it.) Are you REALLY saying that someone's physical appearance reflects (or is) their worth?
 
@scout86,

I think that we jump to the appearance issue because after saying this....

i've been settling for girls at "the bottom of the barrel" if you will...

he states this....

The girls i'm really attracted to I always get WAY to nervous and petrified to talk to.

Which gives the impression that "bottom of the barrel" girls are those he isn't physically attracted to given that if he can't even talk to them, really the only thing he knows about them is how they look. (Its impossible to get an accurate impression of someone within the first few moments of seeing them.)

On the one hand I want to say its a young guy thing in that yes, young guys are oftentimes preoccupied with getting the hottest girl that they can, and everything else doesn't mean so much. But, get enough of these "hot" girls who are more boring than watching paint dry, and maybe then he'll start expanding what he looks for in a partner. I'm NOT saying that looks aren't important, as it is important to be attracted to your partner, but I think that initial impressions can be deceiving. A "hot" person can quickly become ugly if their behavior is atrocious, and a not so hot person can grow to become the most beautiful person you've ever known if you learn to appreciate all that they are inside.

But, I do admit that things like this do indeed get under my skin. I was once what people considered "bottom of the barrel" because of my looks. I didn't date at all in my 20's. I dated a guy last summer and he told me I was the most attractive person he's ever dated. (The guy is brutally honest so I don't take it as a come-on.) I think life evens out though. I guess I'm one of the lucky few who's looks have actually improved as I'm getting older? Lesson? Looks are always changing and if you only date those you are attracted to at first glance, you'll be missing out on a lot of great people.
 
My guy would agree @Solara .. his past relationships were "10's" in appearance, but says they tended to expect life be handed to them. He once told me (as I was previously "morbidly obese" but hv lost about 150 lbs!) that he would tell every guy they should get a "fat girl gone skinny" cuz I learned a whole different "ambition" in life .. we've had other insecurities I have had to work on, too .. but my man also says he wishes he'd known at 20 what he now realizes as he's almost 50. He could have saved himself SO much GRIEF! ..

Thank God He blesses "the broken road" .. if it weren't for my man's ragged past, & if it weren't for my broken self-esteem and "hiding" from sexual attention by staying overweight, he and I would never have found each other .. now we are discovering so much joy and contentment .. we are AMAZED by each other and how much happiness we've found even though life IS hard. We fight the good fight TOGETHER ...
 
@ptsdspouse2b,

How do I find these guys? I lost a bit of weight and I look a lot better. (When I cross the border I get asked for additional ID as my photo looks nothing like me now, and it has nothing to do with 'oh, everyone's passport photos are bad' sort of thing.)

The thing is, I only meet guys who are interested in looks. They don't understand that I hate being called beautiful 50 times a day. Maybe I look good on the outside, but I'm still the same person on the inside, the same person who was ignored for many, many years, and its impossible for me to sit here and be OK with such compliments. Yes, I do try to take them as being sincere, but at the same time, it builds until I lash out at them because that's just not who I am.

I hate that I now attract the same kind of guys who wouldn't have even given me the time of day in the past.
 
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